The present exemplary embodiment relates to the field of marketing goods and services using computer networks. It finds particular application in conjunction with the networking of customers having hardware components, such as printing equipment for example, with vendors of those hardware components to provide customized marketing information to the customers based on the hardware components and their use, and will be described with particular reference thereto. However, it is to be appreciated that the present exemplary embodiments are also amenable to other like applications.
Presently, many servers are installed in the field at client facilities and are adapted to locally collect and store information relative to particular assets of the client. More particularly, existing client servers collect data related to client assets and store the data in a repository such as a local device database or the like. Thus, many client servers are presently at use enriching a body of knowledge which might be used in a marketing context to add to the pool of knowledge about a client.
However, many customers or clients have a sensitivity to vendors, such as printer hardware original equivalent manufacturers (OEMs), peering through a host/client server firewall and into their private and possibly proprietary collection of customer specific information. As a general rule, most clients are disinclined to permit outside vendors or the like from reaching through the firewall and pulling any information back into host servers or, otherwise making local client database information available.
However, making such client information available to marketing groups would enable them to better serve clients with information, offers, rebates, or any other services that may be relevant to a customer's installed base while avoiding supplying the customer with wasteful, unnecessary, and/or unrelated information, offers, or the like.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for providing proxy data or other information relating a customer's local hardware or device database to a particular marketing profile while avoiding sharing the customer's device database with host organizations such as OEM printer equipment and supply vendors.